The Arrival

by Riley Moreno

  Darren gets a barrel of unwelcoming glances. He’s no hero then? As he walks past a few couples who barely manage to blink at him. Darren ignores the hate and walks over to a man who looks like he might have some authority as he speaks with the owner who as usual, is a jaundice yellow under duress and stress.

  He’s all mustache with burnt brown cheeks and a patch of dry skin on his temple that looks to be peeling and frettingly infected. Or maybe just a skin condition? Darren notices that he dresses a little more modern than most so far, although basic with white brand-less sneakers, cowboy jeans, black denim jacket with minimum white and black fur, and one pierced golden earlobe. Mid 30’s, lightweight, unfit judging by the way he carries himself and the short flight of stairs tiring him out.

  “Hona.” Darren’s been given his name before he even asks it.

  “Oh. Hona to you too.” But he figures it’s a formal greeting over here.

  “No. My name is Hona.” He wipes his hand on his jeans because of the sweat and then off-handedly offers it for Darren to shake.

  Darren takes this as another gesture and wipes his own hand. I think a part of him wants to fit in here. Or at least try and show some respect to how they do things. He shakes hands, “That’s the warmest greeting I’ve gotten so far.”

  Hona glances at Darren’s observation which can’t be denied as hotel stayers gather closer to watch the stretcher carry out the covered body. Hona rushes the paramedics down the stairs and then wildly proclaims, “Go. Nothing more to see. A bad man who got his just results. Let that be a lesson to anybody who joins their nonsense cause.”

  They leave the passageway of the hotel and go back to their rooms, multiple doors shut simultaneously like angry neighbors. While others well, some of them, act like it’s a normal occurrence to see dead bodies when they come up the stairs with a shrug as they drop their lower lip like a spoilt brat at the carcass being carried into the van in a hurry.

  Hona comes back to speak with Darren, “Yes. Strangers here are not welcome. Don’t take it personally. You’re a native to them.”

  “You don’t sound like you’re from here?” Hona doesn’t, his accent is stout and bitter. Precise, and better articulated then others who speak as if English is their 3rd language. It has a hint of an islander from Hawaii, and his skin tone would support that he’s a brown skin tropic.

  “I’m not. Is it that obvious?”

  “Your clothes suggest outsider.”

  “Ah yes. Well, there is a local store that tries to keep the locals in fashion. Many have bigger problems than the latest brands.” Darren and Hona walk to Lee’s room where a member of his team is documenting all her details into a handy notepad. The room has been left untouched, Hona’s orders.

  Hona and Darren stand outside observing Lee walk around the room and observe every single aspect. “I’m sorry that your friend received such treatment.” The investigator has bagged the two stones, Lee’s gun has marked points where the blood was splattered by Darren and jotted down the fingerprints of the window. “It’s quite common for me to come to a stranger’s room to investigate a threat to their life or a forced attempt to get them to leave.”

  “When was the last time?”

  “Uh.” Hona scratches the side of his temple with a furrowed brow that’s searching for that newspaper article. “I think ...” scratch-scratch-scratch; “a few months back. A woman had come on a trip.”

  “A woman? Did she have a name?”

  “Yes. It was ...”

  The interruption is Lee, who turns both their heads as she comes out of the room with her phone clasped at the side of her ear. “It’s Henny. I’ve just been on the phone with him.”

  “And ... is everything ok? You look a little flustered.”

  “We need a ride. Um, mister–”

  “Hona Coyonta. I can give you a lift in my vintage lime green Honda. Where do you both need to go?”

  “Back to the hangar. Ringo isn’t who we expected him to be.” Did he really have to describe the color? Lee thinks bizarrely.

  Chapter 3

  “He said he’ll be back. Be patient.”

  “Darren, I figured his car would be waiting outside. Not him going off to get his vehicle.”

  “It’s a 20-minute walk.”

  “Well, we could’ve gone with him to save time.”

  “This gives me time to speak with you alone. What’s going on with Ringo? What did Henny say?”

  “That we got on the wrong plane. And that the pilot’s name shouldn’t be Ringo.”

  “But ... there was only one plane when we reached the hangar.”

  “No. That’s what we thought. The other was shrouded in darkness and away from our vision. And meant to be headed to another destination. Seems like a rotten exchange at the last minute. A shift of planes or something.”

  “Come one! Ah, it makes no sense. I specifically followed Henny’s instructions which were to the allocated plane would be sitting closest to the bifold doors. It was there.” Darren’s getting worked up. “It was right there! Just as he described.”

  “Ok. Let’s not get to aggie. We might be in the wrong country, but maybe that’s not a bad thing.”

  “Explain, Lee.”

  “Something is going down here and it’s my duty, as an acting amateur detective, to see that it doesn’t have anything to do with Shaka.”

  “You were meant to be dutying somewhere else. Not here. We don’t need to stay, you know? We should head to where we need to go. Or even go back. Lee, did Henny say to come back?”

  “Of course, he didn’t.”

  “Lee?” Darren’s wondering why there’s now a gap between them which makes it easier for Lee to avoid eye contact with him when it comes to that question.

  “Darren. That wasn’t his words, ok.” He wouldn’t know that was true judging by the look on Lee’s face, unable to dissuade her attention from beyond the construction site that’s near the motel. Her desire is to go and explore.

  “Did you tell him about what happened to you?” Lee’s further away from him now: closer to the motel. “Why are you heading back there? Have I missed something?” Darren’s trying not to yell too loudly.

  “Go find Ringo?”

  Darren hears instead, “You’re going to find Ringo?”

  “No. You go and find Ringo.”

  “O ... Wha ... What? Where are you going, Lee?” He calls out loud enough to wake the neighborhood. He forgets subtly.

  She’s already heading to the back area of the motel, passing through the gate and walking upon the legally owned land that dirty her toenails with the dark chocolate colored dirt and cause her to sink through with her beaded bohemian sandals.

  She kicks it off the best she can, “Just following an early hunch. Not lunch.” She dusts the bottom of her sandals with a piece of tissue that she takes from a packet. “I want to explore the rest of the town!” A waste of time wiping because they just get dirty again as she huffs the rest of the way.

  Darren watches her head higher and higher up until she reaches its peak, gives a head swipe from left to right and then boldly walks on giving Darren a far-away look before passing two trees that have been uprooted with only the tree stumps left.

  ...

  Lee had a hunch, and she knew that all this owned land would run for a few more miles than she expected. Signposts are up, detailing the 40 acres land is legally owned where she walks through like it’s a beach and she’s enjoying the weather as she lets out her dreads to air and rubs them individually with her palms. Lee’s a lone wolf walking on here, but a few bikes pass by and stare quizzically mainly because she should be taking the designated path for pedestrians.

  Apart from all the soil, it’s a pleasant afternoon. Nothing much has been built upon it, although large bags of bricks lay here and there. There’s steel, metal, concrete, planks of wood, plastering, a few toilet portaloos that the workers will be using, and some plastic chair seating with foil that likely wrapped sandw
iches inside of them.

  The heavy machinery, like the cement mixer and crane, are positioned a little further down. And as she walks close to a bulldozer that hasn’t been used yet, she sees pipes and a few discarded toilet seats stacked next to a couple of baths that could be disinfected. What Lee was hoping to spot was an indication of what is being built. Or what has been totally stalled for later completion.

  There is some brickwork laid out that runs for at least 500-centimeters, but that foundation has stopped as Lee observes that the cementing has very much dried. She gives it a touch with her ring finger and tries to take it off like cake icing.

  Lee knows very little about how a building is created, but she gives it a wild guess and brainstorms that with the scattered foundations all around, either more homes or work buildings was meant to go ahead.

  But Lee isn’t too sure. It’s all a little...different, out here. She now heads to the pathway, because the rest of the owned land is pretty much barren with no shine for a complimentary head-banger that equals a new-found discovery.

  Lee literally reaches the fenced door when she realizes she isn’t alone, as a woman who she had seen skating, not on a skateboard, but very slowly treading the pathway in a white buttoned up cardigan that suggests she enjoys covering her big chest - and a long unflattering gray skirt to hide her glamorous legs. She obviously conceals her natural hair with a beanie hat and two small strands of hair that hang down on her face.

  Lee can see that this is the type of woman who prefers to be ogled later and spoken to first. She is clearly good looking and more youthful than herself. There’s something behind this image of hers. Lee finds that those with timidity, have the most to say, even if it seems unlikely that they do.

  Lee is vigilant. After what happened to her, she is edgily cautious of anybody. The girl back-off when Lee comes out. To crush the awkwardness, Lee thinks she should introduce herself and speak some syntax and phonetics. “Hi um ... I saw you walking up and down and thought maybe you knew anything about all this out here?”

  Surprisingly, the girl is very straightforward, “Yes. I do.”

  “Oh.” Lee was expecting some shyness. But there was no volcanic shake with that delivery from her. “Could you please tell me what it is that was meant to be built?”

  The girl’s eyes drop down, all the way down and come back up to meet Lee with a serious gaze and no smile. She folds her arms and her back slouches forward like she’s suddenly caught hypothermia and would need a jumper on top of that thinly sewn cardigan. It looks flimsy to Lee. “Many ideas for it from the man. Mainly, some say, he wanted to build a bank. Right here. One or two for the people to be able to deposit their money for safety.”

  Her eyes glide over Lee’s, from side-to-side, “You’re ... stranger here?”

  “Yes.” Lee lets the girl speak. She seems to have more to say.

  “I know. I see you. I watch you stay at a motel with the young man. Somebody died?”

  An observant girl. “Yes. Sad. Do you know him? Or anything about it?” Lee wants to see if this girl is as nifty as she’s trying to hide. She’s fishing. Lee’s sure that many more townsfolk will hide and seek too.

  “I know nothing of the man killed. But they only ever attack when somebody new has arrived. It is never been the case for them to turn up dead. Another way...” The girl goes quiet before her head drops and randomly reaches out to touch Lee’s dreads, raising her head to relish the sensation.

  Lee tries not to flinch, she hates when people touch her hair as if it’s a rare relic from the Egyptian era. But the girl is so intriguing and the opposite of how she carries herself. “You are a beautiful woman.” She studies Lee’s hair.

  “Thank you.” Lee now feels her taking a whole bunch into her hand and elongating it to its full stretch-ability. Lee figures a hair model must experience the same treatment. She awkwardly grins with a sealed mouth.

  “I actually think you should come with me. Up there ... not many nice people. And you seem similar to me.”

  “Similar how?” The girl drops Lee’s dreads when she says this gently.

  “Curious about town. People. All that out there.” She chins the owned land. “I think we should get a meal together. Talk a little. If that is ok with you?”

  “I could do with some lunch. Do you know a place?”

  “Yes. We can go to a café that’s just over there.” She heads back to town. Lee didn’t want to go back that way. But her instincts say seek and you shall find.

  ...

  The café, when Lee goes inside, is full of cats on pillows just relaxing and licking their paws. They have their own little corner with scratching posts and mini-roped balls where they can get their nails stuck into. And then Lee hears the chirping of caged colorful birds hanging from the low ceiling, at least 10 up there. The cats would have no chance.

  The tables are aligned like a school room. A woman who looks past 60, but still amply and fit, rushes past the girl and Lee with a bucket of water and pours it at the front of the shop.

  She does relays, collecting water from a pump in the front, and then returning to the kitchen.

  “The water out here is pure. And she is an older lady stuck in her ways of doing things the hard way.” Lee can understand. Why not just use the sink in the kitchen to wipe out a big spillage? “People say, Matilda, use water in the kitchen. Don’t work yourself like this. But she only says that she needs exercise and likes to run up and down. So, they leave her be.”

  Lee observes that she’s discarding used water from a mini accident that happened from the kitchen. She's now moping it up. And when she’s done, she stands with the bucket in hand and lays it next to her feet. “I will not serve stranger.” She collects a few cans of cat food, and the cats start to purr and meow hungrily as they come out. “Do not touch stranger my darlings.” The fluffy and bitterly ginger cats obey and go back to wait by their empty bowls.

  Lee’s eyelids do the full-moon-tonight. She prepares to leave, but the girl speaks up, “Matilda, this stranger is different. She seems very calm. I only just speak with her.”

  “I do not care! Last stranger come and bring big headache. Try to expose things that we people turn our eyes from.” With this being said, Lee takes a step to the older woman who backs-up with both cat-food cans pressed to her chest. “Do not come close.”

  The girl kindly approaches on behalf of Lee and draws her back, turns back to speak with her in a hushed voice, “you want to ask her what she means, right?”

  “You read my mind.” Lee’s alternating between the elderly woman and her. “Please, ask her if this woman happened to be a journalist? Was that the case?”

  “Are you cop?” The girl’s entire face bears a frown. “Why you want to know this?”

  “A friend. I lost a friend.”

  “I don’t know of any journalist.” She asks the older woman this now, “was woman a journalist?”

  “I do not know. But Angelina, leave café. Look who is coming!?”

  Lee and Angelina swiftly turn their necks and see a man in a black suit approaching, alongside two men who are garbed in what must be a sign of policing attire: gold shoulder pads, caramel shirts with 2-pockets on both chests with buttons, that’s tucked into a black pair of tailored trousers with thick lines running down the front and back that must be the way it was handmade. They carry a handgun attached to their belts in a pouch.

  The man in the black suit is Caucasian, well, more of a European complexion with dark red hair swept back like a small canary in resting on top; with a swaggering and very corporate walk that seems square and positioned in an office. Judging by his irritation when he nearly steps into horse shit with his shiny black shoes, he must be fed up with the outdoor living.

  The expression that rests on his face when he sees Lee is man vs alien, he is unsure if a woman like this can be treated as a human being. She knows she reads too much into first impressions, but he comes across narrow-minded with his pear-drop shape
d eyes and astute glower. “Uh. Where you the woman walking on that land that is privately owned?”

  Educated man. But Lee finds these types full of shit!

  Lee’s mouth hangs open as they stand in the door intimidatingly. She isn’t scared of any man, but around him, her nerves are preliminarily lighting matches and seem unpredictable. She wonders if she looks anxious or prickly in their eyes? Things like this don’t bother her back home, but now it has to be the case of watching what you show.

  “She got lost.” Angelina stands beside Lee who still can’t find what she needs to say. She’s giving it a thorough search through. Them letters to form her sentence will come. “I helped her to come off.”

  “It’s a criminal offense to step onto that legally owned land. No person is permitted to do so.” My God, Lee finds her mouth shuts but he’s an idiot to her already. If only she was on comfortable grounds.

  “She was unaware. Can you not allow her chance?”

  “I cannot. You must come with us to have this written up as a report.”

  “I ...” Lee never stutters. “The thing is – “

  “You are able to read the signs. And your English must be better than these...people.” His nose cocks itself up with a higher tone to suggest their inferiority against his position. His eyes fell on the elderly women when he said that. She doesn’t like him much by her increased and controlled breathing. “You are free to accompany her. As you are always so ready to be the aid of strangers, Angelina.”

  Angelina hangs her head subtly. Lee thinks there’s a wild spread field out here with many dead flowers to pick. This girl probably has her own roots dug deep somewhere. Two guards change those train tracks for Lee as she raises her hands to the sides of her face, “don’t touch me.” That confidence rattles them both. “I never allow any man or women to ever do that.”

  “Then come along nicely and we’ll not need to lay any hands on you.”

  “Would you be kind enough to give me your name?”